How Amazon's Fire TV Could Reshape The Streaming Market

Today, Amazon announced its television-streaming device, the Fire TV. It's a set-top box that lets you watch videos and play games, and it starts shipping today for $99, a price that's on par with Apple TV but almost three times the price of Google's $35 Chromecast.

Mark Hoelzel, research analyst for Business Insider Intelligence, predicts that Amazon will sell 5.8 million Fire TVs in the US this year. Those numbers would give it about one-fifth of the streaming-device market share by sales, putting it behind only the Apple TV.

How could Amazon capture such a significant market share when it's the newest player in the market?

It already has a bunch of original content (with more on the way this spring) and a built-in audience for the Amazon Fire TV. At least 20 million people currently pay for Amazon Prime, which, besides the two-day shipping, gives them unlimited access to its vast catalog of Amazon Instant digital content. For anyone with a Prime subscription, there's huge appeal in getting the Amazon Fire TV: They'll be able to get all the content that they already have access to onto their TVs extremely more easily. Plus, of course, other apps — like Hulu and Netflix — will be available on the Fire TV, too.